


Insatiate

by vageege



Category: One Piece
Genre: Gen, see beginning notes for warnings!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-12
Updated: 2015-04-12
Packaged: 2018-03-22 13:01:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3729886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vageege/pseuds/vageege
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sanji smokes cigarettes for a couple of reasons.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Insatiate

**Author's Note:**

> WARNINGS FOR: moments of intense anxiety, topics relating to mental health and food/eating, death/suicide mention, vomiting
> 
> **a short comic for this can be found on my art blog [here](http://ciqq.tumblr.com/post/116249559756/okama-kenpo-insatiate-rating-t-word-count)

 

It hurt endlessly, worse than anything he’d ever felt, until, one day, it didn’t anymore, for a while. 

 

It made him intensely sick, and that never really stopped, even when the pain did. 

 

“Wake up!” 

 

Eventually, even water made Sanji gag when he forced himself to drink it. Which, he drank a _lot_ , every day, all the damn time. And it all hurt so fucking bad, out of nowhere — and then the pain would subside, flare back up even worse, and he’d get sick. 

 

Daily routine. Part of life. Part of not dying, at least. 

 

“Get up! Damn, what the hell!” 

 

So fucking hungry.

 

It hurt even just sitting there. And it was torture to move — to use muscles that were dying and being wasted away and consumed. His head ached constantly, so much that it hurt to think, and eventually, even thinking was too difficult. 

 

He lost his mind, eventually. 

 

Which was fucking awful, but also, in a way, it was a welcome relief, in retrospect. 

 

For a long time in the beginning, he never stopped thinking, up until the moment where his thoughts just fell apart one day and became more abstract than all that, until they were just muted feelings instead of actual complete thoughts — looped daydreams and memories and mental images of meals he’d kill to eat. That was all he could do. 

 

So _fucking_ hungry.

 

He was only ten years old, and for _months_ , all he could do was sit and think and drink water and hurt, so bad, all over, until he went numb. Mostly numb.

 

And that was it. For hours. Every single day. Without stopping, from the moment he was awake to the time he passed out again, he could only sit and stare and starve and think while he looked out into the ocean in front of him. Waiting. Maybe waiting to die. 

 

So many days. Weeks. Eighty-five days. No food. 

 

So fucking hungry.

 

He thought about food most of the time. And the rest of the time—

 

He didn’t know how many hours he’d spent debating if his grave should be out there, in the ocean that he once loved, or if he should let his body rot and decay there on that fucking rock. Hang on to the bitter end. 

 

On the rock, at least, he could feel the sun. There was no sun at the bottom of the ocean. 

 

He was almost always cold.

 

Maybe the weather would finally do him in.

 

These were things a person who’d only gotten to live for a single decade shouldn’t _have_ to think about. 

 

But all he _could_ do was think. And think. And think. And stare. And hurt, hurt, hurt. And starve. And die, probably. 

 

Maybe dying wouldn’t be so bad. The experience couldn’t be _all_ bad. Everyone died. Little kids died all the time. Dying probably wasn’t that awful. 

 

If he died, everything would stop hurting all the time, at least. He wouldn’t be hungry anymore.

 

Maybe he’d be able to be with his mother again. 

 

He’d made a promise to live, but he’d made a lot of promises in his life. 

 

Fuck. _Damn it_ , fuck. No, no, he couldn’t think like that. He was going to live. He _was going to live_ through all of it. He still had to find All Blue. So he couldn’t die there. Right. He was going to make it, definitely. He’d survived for _so long_ already, he was going to absolutely, _definitely_ make it. 

 

He was so fucking hungry.

 

He was going to die. 

 

Dying was better than this. 

 

Damn.

 

His clothes were practically fucking rotting off of him. He might as well be naked. 

 

He hadn’t used his voice in months. He wasn’t sure he even _could_ speak anymore. 

 

He thought about speaking. He thought about saying something aloud, just to see if he could. He thought about composing his last string of words. He thought about the last sentence he would ever speak. 

 

He should kill that old man. 

 

He was so hungry. 

 

“Wake the fuck up, you stupid idiot!” 

 

Sanji’s eyes snapped open at the sound of — it was like a harsh crack that rocked though him, shattered everything — and his face was very suddenly burning. 

 

He sat up very quickly and took in his setting. 

 

He was not on a rock, dying slowly and painfully. He was in a dark room with moonlight spilling in through the window. 

 

It was the middle of the night. And he was in a bed. This was not his bed. Zoro was next to him, sitting on the edge of said bed, looking at him. Looking kind of freaked out. 

 

He’d been dreaming. 

 

Zoro had smacked him. 

 

His face was wet. 

 

“You were crying in your sleep,” Zoro filled in, sounding neither angry or amused. Neutral. Guarded. 

 

He’d been crying? 

 

He’d been crying. In his sleep. 

 

How embarrassing. 

 

“Fuck,” Sanji mumbled, grabbing the twisted, sweaty sheet he was tangled in, hunching over and bringing it to his face with both hands. He stayed like that. 

 

“Are you—“

 

“Go away, I’m fine.” 

 

He spoke into his sheet. His buffer. His shield. He needed a cigarette. Needed his clothes — needed to put on a suit, or at least something with long sleeves, and cook and smoke and hum to himself and move around. Needed to get back on the boat. Even for a while.

 

Fuck, he was so hungry.

 

Zoro wasn’t leaving. 

 

Sanji rubbed the sheet against his face, took a deep breath, and let his hands fall to his lap, sitting up much straighter. And he glared over at Zoro. 

 

“Go back to your own room, and go the hell back to bed,” Sanji said with as much disdain as he could muster and fit into his hoarse voice. 

 

Zoro didn’t say anything. He also did not get up.  

 

They glared at each other for several seconds. Sanji was the first to crack. 

 

“Fine. Stay here and be silent and weird and stupid,” he said as he kicked out of his blankets. 

 

“Are you going somewhere?” 

 

“Back to the Sunny.” 

 

Zoro folded his arms over his chest as Sanji climbed out of bed and padded over to the small bag in the corner of the room at the inn where they were currently located. 

 

“Franky’s going to give you shit,” Zoro said, his voice quiet and low and annoying as hell. 

 

“I can’t believe you think I give a fuck,” Sanji replied, unzipping his bag and removing a selection of folded clothes. He was shivering in just his undergarments. But his whole body was still relatively damp and cold from sweating, and he really wanted to _shower_ , actually. On the Sunny. Not at the inn where they were staying. 

 

“Why are you going back to the Sunny,” Zoro asked, or accused, or whatever. He said it like an asshole. 

 

“Why are you suddenly so _interested_ in what I’m doing? Why are you in this room, for example,” Sanji countered, stepping into a pair of slacks. 

 

“I could feel you when I walked by your door.” 

 

“Can you feel how much I want you to fuck off right now?” 

 

Zoro actually smiled a little. His asshole smirk. 

 

“Kinda, yeah.” 

 

Sanji matched his expression. “You were _worried_ about me.” 

 

“Hell no I wasn’t,” Zoro said immediately, looking much angrier than he had been just a few seconds ago. Good. 

 

“If that isn’t the case, then go fuck off, you stupid moss-for-brains. I’m going back to the ship,” Sanji replied as he buttoned his shirt up all the way to his neck. 

 

Much better. _Much_ better, hell yeah. 

 

Okay. Halfway there. 

 

Shit, he was hungry as fuck.

 

Sanji grabbed a cigarette from his pack on the nightstand and lit it and took a few more steps towards the door before he paused to deal with the sudden wave of nausea. 

 

Zoro snorted. 

 

“You gonna vomit now?” 

 

Sanji shot a look over at him, swallowing bile, pissed as hell that Zoro could pick up even on that shit these days. 

 

With a hand that barely shook, he took a deep drag of his cigarette and pushed the sick feeling back down to the bottom of his stomach. 

 

“I’m not going to throw up,” Sanji said quietly, like it was a threat. Maybe he was actually threatening himself in that moment. 

 

Don’t fucking do it, stupid idiot body. 

 

He took another very long drag of his cigarette. 

 

“You’re gonna throw up,” Zoro said, almost like he was entertained by the display in front of him. Of Sanji standing there, trying to will himself to continue walking towards the door. 

 

But Sanji was having a lot of trouble walking. The floor underneath him was too solid. Too still. Didn’t rock and shift with the waves underneath it. Didn’t move at all. It made his legs feel like jelly, like he was going to sink to his knees. He was suddenly disoriented. He didn’t feel right. He was sweating again, maybe. He was back on that fucking rock. No. He was at the inn. His stomach was empty. He could feel his pulse skyrocketing. He was starving. His stomach was caving in. No. He was fine. His fingers felt weird and his throat was getting tighter. He couldn’t breathe right. No. He was fine. He was fucking fine. 

 

He was going to throw up. 

 

He walked to the attached bathroom, jogging the last few steps, and he grabbed the rim of the toilet and hunched over it and shut his eyes and, fuck—

 

“Called it.” 

 

“Fuck off,” Sanji gasped between heaves, coughing and spitting, keeping his head down, his hair effectively covering his face. 

 

“Not the first time I’ve seen you do this,” Zoro said, and from the sound of his voice, and the feel of his … whatever it was that Sanji felt around him — his aura, or whatever — he was getting closer. Walking towards the bathroom. 

 

Without looking up, Sanji held out his cigarette. “Take this from me.” 

 

“What am I supposed to do with it.” 

 

“Who fucking cares,” Sanji grunted, leaning hard again, grateful that Zoro took his lit cigarette so he could grip the rim of the toilet better. “Just hold onto it. Or smoke it, or put it out, just get _away from me._ ” 

 

Zoro didn’t leave, though. 

 

Sanji spat into the toilet again, shutting his eyes tight because they were tearing up and his entire body was kind of shaking now, or almost vibrating under the stress, and he was going to lose it over looking so damn weak in front of Zoro, but when he glanced over through his curtain of hair, he saw Zoro putting his cigarette to his lips and sucking smoke into his mouth and holding it there before letting it seep out. 

 

Sanji smiled just a little. 

 

“What’s the point of this,” Zoro mumbled, looking down at the cigarette that he held totally awkwardly. 

 

“Suck it into your lungs,” Sanji replied, his voice strained and sounding way too fragile, but fuck all that, this was actually _very_ entertaining for him. He forgot momentarily that he was in the middle of dry heaving. 

 

Zoro took another drag from his cigarette, paused, and Sanji watched him fight his body’s natural reaction to _not_ inhale smoke directly into his lungs, but he did anyway — took a deep breath after pulling a lot of smoke into his mouth — and he actually doubled over at the coughing fit that followed. 

 

Sanji managed to actually laugh a bit, despite his throat feeling like it was on fire. 

 

At least, he laughed until he was throwing up again. 

 

And they were stuck like that, for a minute. Ridiculous. Both of them bent over at the waist, Zoro coughing his lungs out and Sanji gagging into the toilet. 

 

So fucking dumb. 

 

They both straightened up at about the same time, rubbing the tears from their eyes. Sanji blew his nose and flushed the toilet and Zoro regained his composure. 

 

“Why do you do this,” Zoro managed to say, his voice immediately raw. 

 

“Try it again,” Sanji responded as he dipped his head under the sink and sucked water into his mouth. 

 

“Hell no.” 

 

Sanji swallowed and straightened up. 

 

“If you want to know, then do it again. You won’t choke this time, probably.” 

 

Zoro gave him a face that said, clear as day, that he didn’t believe a word he said. 

 

Sanji shrugged. “Then give it back and you’ll be left wondering.” 

 

Zoro pursed his lips together and looked a little more pissy than he had before, but after glaring down at the cigarette, he gave in, and he took another drag. Smaller, this time. 

 

Sanji watched him, and he couldn’t help but smile. 

 

When Zoro exhaled, Sanji’s hands slid in his pockets. 

 

“One more time,” he said, quietly, while Zoro stared right at him, right into his eyes. 

 

Zoro did it again. He let the smoke billow out his nose, like Sanji did a lot of the time. Trying that whole thing out. And then he blinked a few times and brought a hand to his face with Sanji’s lit cigarette still between his first two fingers — the way Sanji always held them. 

 

“Oh,” Zoro said, and Sanji watched him feel that nicotine high for the first time. “Weird.” 

 

Sanji snorted. 

 

“Reminds me of being buzzed,” Zoro said, mostly to himself, from the sound of it. 

 

“Right.” 

 

Zoro looked up at him. “Do you feel like this all the time?” 

 

Sanji grinned, couldn’t help it. “Nah. Haven’t for a long time. Only happens when I go a while without one. Which, it’s been a while since I’ve done that.” 

 

“No kidding,” Zoro replied, offering it back to him. 

 

“You can finish it if you want,” Sanji said, smiling a little, raising an eyebrow. Playing the devil’s advocate. 

 

“Aren’t these bad for you,” Zoro said just before he took another, longer drag. He blew the smoke right into Sanji’s face. Like Sanji had done to him countless times. And Sanji wasn’t even mad about it.

 

“So I’ve been told.” 

 

“Maybe this is what’ll finally kill you one day,” Zoro muttered, and he held the cigarette out over the sink, ashing it the same way he’d undoubtedly seen Sanji do. 

 

And Sanji wasn’t going to lie. It was weird as hell, seeing Zoro smoke. But. It wasn’t a bad sort of weird. 

 

“They won’t kill me,” Sanji replied, amused, and he walked around Zoro, leaving him in the bathroom. 

 

He did feel better, a little. After throwing up, at least, he always felt a little better. But he was still crawling out of his skin, and he had to get back to the boat. Baby’s first cigarette had been entertaining and all, but he needed to get the fuck out of there. 

 

He was back to being hungry. 

 

Sanji grabbed his pack of cigarettes and stepped into his expensive shoes and went straight to the door. 

 

Zoro, unfortunately, followed him. Still smoking, hilarious enough. 

 

“Why does being on dry land make you throw up,” Zoro finally asked once they were outside of the inn and headed towards the Sunny. 

 

“I grew up on a ship. Dry land feels weird.” 

 

“That isn’t it,” Zoro said, keeping up with his pace. “I’ve met other sailors like you and asked, and they don’t get sick.” 

 

Sanji raised his eyebrows without meaning to. “You _asked_ them about it?” 

 

“Long time ago — almost right after we picked you up. Before we got Chopper, even. I didn’t know why you snuck off to go puke whenever we were stuck at an island for more than a day. So I asked some different people if it happened to them, and they all said no.” 

 

“Why did you care?” Sanji asked. Didn’t really mean to, but it slipped. 

 

Zoro snorted. “If there’s a weakness in the crew, it’s best to try to fix it so it doesn’t fuck us up later.” 

 

Sanji bristled at being called weak. 

 

But. Well. He _was_ weak, wasn’t he. About this one thing. Which was infuriating. 

 

After several seconds of silence, Zoro took the last drag of Sanji’s cigarette and flicked it into the darkness as they walked towards the Sunny under the dull light of the moon. 

 

“I just don’t like being on dry land for too long,” Sanji said, eventually. 

 

“So, shit-cook, why were you _crying_ in your sleep?” 

 

“Like you don’t have nightmares,” Sanji returned, shoving fists into his pockets and quickening his pace. 

 

Zoro kept up like nothing had changed. 

 

“I don’t, no.”

 

“Well,” Sanji said, “don’t read into it. Just drop it. Just fucking drop it, and I’ll cook whatever you want back at the Sunny.” 

 

“How come you never cook for just yourself,” Zoro pressed, and Sanji didn’t know why the fucking hell Zoro wanted to play twenty damn questions that night, when they hardly spoke at all — at least without fighting outright after this long. 

 

“Because why would I do that,” Sanji replied quietly. 

 

“You never eat all those dumb snacks you make. Actually, you never eat unless we do, do you. And it’s always after us, even after all these years. And you don’t hardly eat as much as the rest of us do most of the time, even the girls.” 

 

Sanji stopped walking and considered kicking Zoro so far away that he’d get lost forever, but that would only keep them on that shitty island that much longer. 

 

“What’s your fucking deal with food?” Zoro finally asked. 

 

Sanji started walking again. 

 

Like someone as stupid as Zoro could wrap his mind around the way it felt to try to eat again, after going without food for three months. How painful and incredible and fucked up that experience was. How sick it’d made him, and how much he’d cried. How long it’d taken. The recovery process wasn’t pretty. Or fast.

 

He’d never stopped being hungry. Even right then— every single day, from the day he’d been rescued as a child right up to that very moment, right _now,_ and all the damn time, he was always still so _hungry._

 

“Have you decided what you want me to cook you yet,” Sanji said after a few minutes of silence, once the Sunny was in view. He wished his voice didn’t sound so defeated. 

 

“Yeah — and why are you so obsessed with feeding people?” 

 

“Why are you so obsessed with suddenly getting to know me!” Sanji snapped, stopped walking again, turning on Zoro, ready to fight.

 

Zoro’s hand went to one of his katana. 

 

For several seconds, Zoro just _glared_ at him. Real hard. And then he, he fucking—

 

“I don’t know,” he finally admitted, dropping his stance. “Tired of seeing you do shit like cry in your sleep and puke over nothing. I’ve known you a long time now. You still haven’t grown out of it.” 

 

“You’re so fucking stupid,” Sanji muttered, lighting a new cigarette as he turned to continue on his way to the boat. 

 

It didn’t take them long to get there. Sanji finished smoking in the time it took and stepped on the butt as he approached the ship.

 

And Zoro, damn it, followed him onto the Sunny. But once Sanji was standing on those wooden planks, feeling the subtle rise and fall, the shift of the planet itself — he felt _much_ better. 

 

It was hard to even notice, on a ship as big as the Sunny in waters as calm as they were where they were docked. But Sanji felt it — felt the ocean. And he felt a lot fucking better. 

 

“Isn’t Franky sleeping on the ship,” Zoro said as he followed Sanji to the galley. “What modifications is he doing, even.”

 

“Hell if I know. But he’s a heavy-ass sleeper. And he snores. And if he wakes up, I’ll just make him something. Like a cola cake. Maybe I’ll make that anyway. Actually, I can make a lot of shit with cola. I could use it with a glaze for meat. And I could caramelize shit with it. Like onions, _yeah_ ,” Sanji said, starting to ramble, knowing he was fucking doing it, but shit, when he started thinking about food and cooking and different ways to prepare meals — he couldn’t stop. Which was part of the problem. 

 

Fuck he was _so fucking hungry,_ holy damn. 

 

“I could use cola with ground beef and make burgers with it,” Sanji said to himself as he strode into the galley, into his kitchen, immediately going to the fridge, rolling his sleeves up on the way there. 

 

“I’ve never met anyone with such an intense boner for food,” Zoro said as he took a seat at the table, leaning on his elbows. 

 

Sanji turned his head, glancing at Zoro while he laid out various ingredients along the counter. 

 

“I love food,” he said, like it was an explanation. But it was.  

 

“No shit. What’s the deal with that.” 

 

Food was his life. Well, it was everyone’s life, really, but for Sanji — his life literally _revolved_ around it. 

 

“Why do you have such a hard-on for swords?” he asked. 

 

Zoro frowned. “That’s different.” 

 

“It’s the exact same concept.” 

 

“It’s not like you wanna be the world’s best cook,” Zoro said, still making a sour expression. 

 

Sanji snorted at the mere idea as he lit all the burners on the stove. He didn’t bother with responding to Zoro’s stupid logic.

 

Eventually, after a couple minutes of silence between them, without taking his attention away from the several tasks he was performing simultaneously, he said to Zoro, “I’m making a bunch of shit to go with rice. You like rice, right?” 

 

“I do like rice,” Zoro said, sounding like he was about to fall asleep sitting at the table. “Everyone likes rice.” 

 

“Some people don’t like the strangest damn things,” Sanji replied. “Remember Law and the whole bread thing.” 

 

“Yeah, what a fucking idiot.”

 

Sanji grinned at the sizzling food on the stove in front of him as he said, “I agree.” One of the only times he’d outright agreed with Zoro on anything, probably. 

 

“I’m gonna drink.” 

 

“Okay?” Sanji looked over his shoulder. 

 

Zoro raised an eyebrow. But honestly, Sanji couldn’t give a shit if Zoro drank half of their entire liquor supply. He was focused on one thing only. Well, more like five things at once, but — he was cooking, and in that moment, that was literally all he could think about. He shrugged and said, “Just don’t ruin your appetite,” as he returned to preparing a huge meal. 

 

He listened to the sound of the side cabinet opening, and a bottle being uncorked, and as he flipped all the vegetables he was frying, Zoro walked over and sat his stupid ass down on the counter next to the stove. 

 

“Go somewhere else,” Sanji said evenly, refusing to look at him.

 

“I’m watching.” 

 

Sanji nearly kicked a hole in the oven. Taking a deep breath, he reached over and yanked the bottle of rum from Zoro’s grip and took a long drink, fighting the grimace from the taste, shifting his weight while he returned the bottle to Zoro and his eyes to the stove. 

 

He was going to need to drink more than that, probably. He didn’t have the energy to fight with Zoro. Or, rather, he didn’t care enough — he was stuck in front of the stove, his mind looping, going down that spiral of _hungry, hungry, need food, so fucking hungry._  

 

The liquor would probably help to kill his appetite a little. And he’d blown through that last cigarette too fast. He lit another. 

 

There was almost an entire minute, maybe, of very welcomed silence before Zoro opened his stupid fucking mouth again. 

 

“I talked to Chopper about your problem.“

 

“I don’t have a damn _problem_ —“ 

 

Zoro actually laughed a little, “Oh, you have a problem.” 

 

“ _You_ are the _only_ problem I have.”

 

Zoro took a drink from the bottle of cheap rum Sanji had bought on the last island. He always made sure to get the cheapest shit for Zoro. 

 

“He and I have talked about it a few times, after I pointed it out.” 

 

Sanji turned away from the stove and went to go peel and chop a few choice fruits. He was about to bite through his cigarette. The mere fact that Zoro and Chopper had _talked about him_ was — it was — fuck, it was _infuriating._ And it made his stomach churn. He needed another drink. A lot of them, maybe. Anything other than water, honestly. And he wanted to eat all the damn food he was preparing, but he couldn’t do that, could he. 

 

Zoro didn’t say anything else, though. He just sat on the counter with his legs dangling off the side like an idiot, guzzling away at his bottle. 

 

Sanji turned and took the bottle from him, returning to the counter and the fruit as he finally gave in and said, “So what the fuck did Chopper say.” 

 

“He thinks you’re fucked up.” 

 

“Shut up, you stupid idiot moss,” Sanji said with a lot less bite than he’d intended. He set the fruit to the side and took a long drink from the bottle he still had in his possession, and then another, and maybe just one more — and he returned to the stove and looked down at all the food simmering and sizzling and smelling fucking _incredible_ , it looked _so fucking good_ , damn it, he was going to _fucking devour_ _all of it_. 

 

Er, not all of it. Some of it. The rest, he was going to make Zoro eat, and he was going to fucking watch him eat it, and it was going to be good. 

 

Sanji blinked and took a long drag from his cigarette as Zoro said, “He thinks you have a mental problem. But he said he didn’t know a lot about those, or how to fix them. But you know him, he was all intense about learning about it—“ 

 

“Why the fuck were you two discussing my mental problems behind my back?” Sanji finally cut in, speaking quietly and controlled and trying _real_ hard to keep his emotions in check — his fucking temper — because he didn’t want to waste any food in the damage that’d ensue from kicking Zoro’s ass. And because he wanted to know the answer to the question. 

 

“Like I said before,” Zoro said as he leaned over to try to snatch the alcohol back, but Sanji held the bottle out of his reach as he turned down one of the burners on the stove, “you’re weak. I didn’t like it.” 

 

“I can’t wait to poison your meal one day,” Sanji said before he could stop himself, reaching to stir the contents of the pot on the back burner. 

 

Zoro snorted. “You almost done with that or what?” 

 

“Shut the fuck up and be patient,” Sanji replied, flipping the meats with his free hand. And then he took one more long drink and gave the bottle back to Zoro.

 

He could feel the booze hitting his stomach, and it felt _good_ , shit. He should probably get a bottle of wine. He couldn’t drink rum at the pace he wanted to.

 

After a few seconds, Zoro cleared his throat and said, “I’m hungry.” 

 

“Like you know _shit_ about being hungry,” Sanji muttered immediately before he could hold it in, and he really hadn’t meant to say it, but damn, fuck, it was all he could think about, all he’d thought about since he woke up, all he thought about every fucking day, usually, and Zoro, damn him, the fucking _nerve—_

 

“What do you know about it?” 

 

“Nothing,” Sanji said, putting his cigarette out and grabbing a few plates. “Go sit at the table.” 

 

Zoro took a noisy drink from his stupid bottle of crappy rum and, thankfully, wordlessly went to sit at the galley table. 

 

When Sanji walked to the table with several plates balanced along his arms, he put most of them in front of Zoro, and he sat down across from him, trying not to choke on all the spit pooling in his mouth, holy _shit_ , he’d outdone himself this time, everything looked _so fucking good_ —

 

“Why is your serving half the size of mine,” Zoro said as he picked up a fork. 

 

“Because you’re a giant dipshit who burns a trillion calories a day training,” Sanji replied easily, still just looking down at his meal. 

 

“Yeah, but who cares, you made a lot—“ 

 

“Which will all get eaten regardless. Don’t forget who our captain is.“ 

 

“But _you_ could eat all that with me. We could both eat all of it right now.” 

 

Sanji wanted to roll his eyes. Or smack Zoro. Both. Definitely both. In that order. 

 

“It’s the middle of the damn night, I’m not that hungry,” he said, and he watched Zoro shoveling food into his mouth. Always the epitome of grace. “I have exactly how much I need.”

 

“Who _cares_ about that right now—“ 

 

“It’s the cook’s job to care about how much each crew member eats, you stupid, mossy idiot.” Sanji took a slow first bite and, fuck, it was so good. “Your job is to cut shit and pull up the anchor. Worry about that. You’ll hurt your simple mind if you think too much about anything else.” 

 

“This coming from an idiot cook who thinks only about women,” Zoro said between stuffing his mouth, “and making a bunch of food he won’t eat.” 

 

Sanji wanted to bend his fork in half. He glared at the meal in front of him that was actually less than half the size of Zoro’s. “I would never waste food, if that’s what you’re—“

 

“I’m not suggesting that.” 

 

“Then just shut the fuck up and eat.” 

 

But Zoro put his fork down. “No. I’m tired of you dancing around it. What’s wrong with you?” 

 

Sanji almost laughed because he felt like he was about to start fucking sweating again. “Nothing’s _wrong_ with me—“ 

 

“Why do you get so freaked out on dry land, then?” 

 

“I _don’t_ —“ 

 

“I _watched_ you barf.” 

 

“I threw up from being around _you_ too much, and I’m about to do it again if you don’t _shut the fuck—“_

 

“ _Damn_ it, cook!” Zoro all but slammed his fist down on the table. But he regained his composure quickly. His voice went back to low and controlled. “We’re docked right now. There’s a real big market a mile from this very spot—“ 

 

“Like you know where _anything_ is—“

 

“—and there’s more food there than any of us could eat. So what’s the deal, why don’t you eat more?” Zoro sat back in his chair, letting the air out of his lungs. 

 

Sanji fucking hated this. 

 

He liked it better when they fought with swords and well-aimed kicks. He wished Zoro would just keep his stupid fucking opinions to himself. And mind his own business. 

 

The answer to Zoro’s question was simple, and yet, even Sanji couldn’t really _understand_ it. He could only deal with it. 

 

If he ate as much as Zoro, or even Franky and Usopp, let alone Luffy — if he ate a lot, then he wouldn’t fucking stop, easy as that. He never felt full — not since he was ten years old, before he got stranded on that fucking rock and suffered through his own body slowly eating itself. And he hardly remembered life before that at all. 

 

As a kid, it’d been a lot to deal with. Zeff had a similar problem. But Zeff had taught him discipline, and a passing customer at the Baratie had inadvertently taught him that cigarettes suppressed the appetite on top of relieving stress, and experience taught him that eating until he was sick wasn’t something he could do all fucking day every day. 

 

He couldn’t tell Zoro that some bullshit he’d managed to live through as a kid was still fucking him up, so many years later — that his metabolism was still somehow fucked, that if he didn’t keep an iron grip on his self control around food, he’d fucking lose it — his entire damn mind. He couldn’t explain that he would literally lose (abandon) all other ability to function because he’d be consumed by food in his attempt to consume as much of it as possible. 

 

And as for getting sick on dry land… Well. Sanji didn’t know what to do about that yet. He never really _went_ on dry land before leaving the Baratie and becoming a pirate. Not since before he sailed half the planet on the Orbit. So he was dealing with it as it happened.

 

Sanji looked down at his plate in front of him. 

 

“Alright,” he said, his voice steady. “I have a problem.” 

 

Zoro said nothing, and Sanji re-worked the recipe for the meal he’d just cooked in his head and made five variations to it before he continued. A few seconds passed. 

 

“But it’s never been a problem, has it?” Sanji looked up at Zoro, hating the way he was being stared down. “It’s never screwed us up. It’s fine. And I can handle it just fine. I’m not weak.” 

 

He stabbed a strawberry with his fork and popped it in his mouth. 

 

“I’m _not_ weak,” he repeated, glaring at Zoro. 

 

There was silence between them for a moment. 

 

Zoro started eating again, and Sanji’s eyes fell, and the clink of silverware against porcelain was starting to drown him and his shitty spiral of thoughts that he couldn’t put a stop to.

 

Sanji gripped his fork so hard and slowly set his knife down. He swallowed with some difficulty.  

 

“Yeah,” Zoro said finally, breaking the silence, and everything else, his mouth completely full. “You’re not weak.” 

 

Sanji clenched his jaw and Zoro took a drink from his bottle of crappy rum. And they finished off their plates together at about the same time. And before they trudged back to the inn, Zoro actually bothered getting off his lazy dumb ass to, shockingly, help Sanji pack up all the leftovers for their captain to wolf down later. And before that, they both went back for seconds. 

 


End file.
